Nov. 4, 2013
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Arizona State head coach Todd Graham / Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports

by Doug Haller, USA TODAY Sports

by Doug Haller, USA TODAY Sports

A day after defeating Washington State, Arizona State coach Todd Graham and son Bo Graham boarded a small plane for a recruiting trip to Dallas.

What happened next had one of them thinking, "Is this really going down?"

Besides the two pilots, the Arizona State coaches were the only two aboard the plane. By the time the plane reached 35,000 feet, Todd Graham had fallen asleep. Bo Graham, Arizona State's running backs coach, was almost asleep.

A "Boom!" startled them. The coaches recounted the incident:

Todd Graham: "I woke up and the pilots were putting on their (oxygen) masks. The plane started shaking."

Bo: "There were sirens going off. I saw the pilots put on their masks. It took a couple minutes for ours to come down. Actually, mine didn't fall down, so I had to go up front and get one."

Todd: "Then the plane started diving."

Bo: "I was kind of in denial. When you start off on the planes and they're giving you the whole 'When the mask falls down' speech, you never think it's going to happen. But when it did happen, I was thinking, 'Is this really going down? Right here?' I mean, come on. In the desert of New Mexico? There are a lot better places to take a fall."

Todd: "I'm not lying. I thought this might have been it. Bo looked like he was in shock."

Bo: "The pilots weren't saying anything. It was nerve-wracking, not to have any control over anything, not to know what was going on. It wasn't good."

The plane - which had lost cabin pressure - dropped to 10,000 feet and stabilized. The pilots did an emergency landing in Albuquerque. There, the coaches waited a few hours for another plane. Once it arrived, they continued their recruiting trip to Texas.

Still, the next day, they didn't feel right.

"I was trying to watch film and just couldn't focus," Todd Graham said.

"I had a migraine. I was almost asleep when this happened," Bo Graham said. "But after this, I couldn't sleep through the next night."

Both coaches said they felt fine at Sunday's practice. Todd Graham initially joked about the incident - "I thought, 'I'm not going to be able to coach this team in the Pac-12 championship game.' " - but later he said he was told the incident was similar to the one that took the life of pro golfer Payne Stewart.

"We're very lucky," Todd Graham said.

Doug Haller covers college sports for The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, a Gannett company.